Jordan received a doctorate (1924) from the University of Göttingen, working with German physicists Max Born and James Franck on the problems of quantum theory. In 1925 Jordan published two seminal papers, one in collaboration with Born and German physicist Werner Heisenberg and one with just Born, that developed Heisenberg’s initial idea of noncommutative variables into a formulation of quantum theory in terms of matrix mechanics—the first working version of quantum mechanics. In the following years, in Göttingen and as a Rockefeller fellow in Copenhagen, Jordan helped propel the new theory toward completion, incorporating the wave mechanics approach of the German physicist Erwin Schrödinger with the matrix formulation. The comprehensive mathematical formalism of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics was achieved for the first time in the transformation theory published by Jordan and independently by the English physicist P.A.M. Dirac in 1927.

Jordan also did pioneering work on the relativistic generalization of quantum mechanics and its application to electromagnetic radiation. In 1925 he used matrix mechanics to quantize electromagnetic waves. This method was further developed to great success in Dirac’s 1927 paper on the quantum theory of radiation, in which also the idea of a second quantization (many-body formalism) for bosons made its first appearance. Jordan then put forward the general program of quantum field theory, proposing that relativistic quantum theory should describe all subatomic particles—matter and radiation alike—as quanta of wave fields. Working toward the implementation of this idea, he and the Hungarian-born American physicist Eugene P. Wigner showed in 1928 how the second quantization is capable of describing fermions, in addition to bosons, by introducing the technical idea of an anticommutator (a special matrix operator).

Heisenberg and the Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli completed the program in 1929–30, but their quantum electrodynamics theory almost immediately faced new difficulties and inspired a search for additional ideas. In the 1930s Jordan suggested further radicalizing mathematical formalism by using nonassociative variables (variables that do not obey the associative law). His proposal did not manage to help quantum field theory but did result in the development of (nonassociative) Jordan algebras in mathematics. In his later research, Jordan also worked on the application of quantum theory to biological problems, and he originated (concurrently with the American physicist Robert Dicke) a theory of cosmology that proposed to make the universal constants of nature variable and dependent upon the expansion of the universe.

Jordan was a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Rostock from 1928 to 1944. Although some of his closest professional friends and colleagues were Jewish, he joined the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazi Party) in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power. In his popular writings about science, Jordan argued that modern physics, including relativity and quantum mechanics, is ideologically compatible with National Socialism. During World War II he performed military research for the Luftwaffe (German air force). Jordan then became a professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin (1944–51) and the University of Hamburg (1951–71) in West Germany. He also served in the West German Bundestag (1957–61), representing the conservative Christian Democratic Union.